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Can any language be without verbs?
Day twevel -- Question -- from "koffiegast" -- quote from "loftyD" -- how the hell can a language not have verbs... Try to say, I am making some lunch . It seems impossible. End quote. Well it is possible, as it all comes down to the notion of verb and what kind of information those words hold. I looked at the roots, the structure in general and... sure some nice ideas, but they just don't work out. I'm sure it has been pointed out before that the choice for some roots is ... you know. The grammar has some great points, but nothing really that super or different from any other average (experimental/logical) conlanger. Tienzen if you want us to understand and show we are wrong (or whatever word you feel like fits in better) I recommend to be more precise and exhaustive. Also it would be nice if your site had some more clear sections (add some spaces, a line, anything will do). That said, I hope to see some great results (in special: the semantics). Answer -- I think that there is no disagreement of any kind among linguists on the issue of whether any computer language is a genuine language. Yet, I did not find any "verb" class in any computer language, although there are some kind of action-like key words, such as, goto, print, etc.. Those action-like key words (goto, print, etc.) are not verbs. Computer language is written in "lines". They are executed (by CPU) line by line. Although we can use computer as a communication tool, the computer language itself is not a "communicative" language but an executive language, very much similar to the PWNL (Primordial what not language) which I discussed in my last post. In fact, verb is a sub-class of the "parts of speech" class which is a unique feature only for an inflected language. Any language which is not inflected does not have "parts of speech" although it does have action-like, adjective-like, adverb-like, ..., many other-like words. In my paper "PreBabel -- The true Universal Language", I did discuss the issue of conceptual and perceptual languages (also available in the book "The Divine Constitution", Library of Congress Catalog Card number 91-90780). Many of the perceptual languages are inflected. Yet, most of the conceptual languages are not inflected. In a conceptual language, all words are in a conceptual level, no time-mark (or any other mark for that matter, such as adjective or adverb, etc.) is attached to any word. Then, a word can be used as anything, as a noun, a verb, an adjective, ..., etc.. For the conceptual language, even the "subject - predicate" structure is not needed. As there are some conceptual languages out there, many linguists do recognize this fact. Without a subject-predicate structure, there is no need for a verb class. Chinese language is an 100% conceptual language and its words are not inflected. What kind of grammar can govern this type of language? A great paper on this is available at http://www.chinese-etymology.com/response.php It is quite obvious that all computer languages are conceptual language, and all their vocabulary (key words) is not inflected. As the computer language is "executed" line by line, no time-mark is needed, and of course, no inflection. No verb is needed. Now we have discussed a few attributes of language. 1. Conceptual 2. Perceptual 3. executive 4. communicative Of course, none of these attributes are 100% mutually exclusive among them. The executive can communicate although it is not its prime purpose, and vice verse. For a universal language, it must have the capacity to encompass all those different attributes. For any basket, its largest capacity is that when it is empty. Thus, the PreBabel grammar is, now, an near empty basket, and thus it can encompass all grammars. A detailed description of the PreBabel grammar is available at the PreBabel site. Signature -- PreBabel is the true universal language, it is available at http://www.prebabel.info